CEOs stay put for holidays

For some chief executives it will be a White Christmas. For others, and for federal politicians, it will probably be grey skies and humidity at home.

Despite the popularity of offshore travel, most corporate chiefs will holiday locally this year.

Macquarie Group
head
Nicholas Moore
is expected to spend the break at his holiday house at Whale Beach on Sydney’s northern beaches, while
Qantas
CEO
Alan Joyce
will holiday in Melbourne with his Irish family.

Billionaire Hamilton Island owner
Bob Oatley
will party on Christmas Day with daughter Ros at her exclusive Chinaman’s Beach address in Sydney.

“I have done that for many years,’’ Oatley says. “We will then go to Hobart for the finish of the Sydney to Hobart race. Then it’s back to Sydney and then back to Hobart for Tasmania’s King of the Derwent [yacht race]. We have been asked to do it for many years.’’

Related Quotes

Company Profile

Former
Westpac
banker
David Morgan
and his wife, former Hawke government minister
Ros Kelly
, are expected to holiday in Sydney and the NSW Southern Highlands over Christmas. Morgan has headed London-based private equity firm JC Flowers for the past two years.

Billionaire property developer
Harry Triguboff
will cool his heels at home in Vaucluse, Sydney, but Meriton general manager
Peter Spira
is off to Bangkok and Cambodia to visit the Angkor Wat temples for the first time.

Tourism Australia chairman and former Qantas CEO
Geoff Dixon
is said to be spending Christmas at Palm Beach and New Year at The Rocks in Sydney.

Seven Group
chairman
Kerry Stokes
is expected to head to the ski fields of North America, according to several sources. Restaurateur
Neil Perry
of Rockpool fame will visit Vail, Colorado. Sources say former News Ltd chief
John Hartigan
is in Fiji.

Federal politicians are usually tight-lipped about their holiday plans, although the NSW south coast is a popular spot for many MPs.

Opposition Leader
Tony Abbott
will spend a week in a caravan park on the south coast with university friends. He expects to read military fiction, including Allan Mallinson’s Hervey series of books, Paul Johnson’s biography, Socrates, and Geoffrey Blainey’s A Short History of the Twentieth Century.

Finance Minister
Penny Wong
and partner Sophie Allouache will spend most of January getting to know her new daughter, Alexandra, who was born on December 11.

Foreign Affairs Minister
Kevin Rudd
will spend his first summer at the family’s $3.1 million Castaways Beach holiday house near Noosa, which they bought in February.

“Overseas, all the usual suspects are Bali, Phuket and Hawaii on the strength of some really great fares," he says. “Overseas has been very popular this year . . . when it came to Christmas, the popularity has continued.’’